A Short History of a Small Place

What makes it funny?

Miss Pettigrew’s return to public life includes performing Antigone on her lawn in a bedsheet while her chimpanzee cavorts nearby. Louis also has to make sense of events through his mother’s charitable accounts and his father’s sardonic ones.

The comedy at work

Louis moves through family accounts, neighborhood stories and long digressions. Pearson lets blunt observations and passing remarks carry much of the humor, leaving room for affection toward the people being described.

Try this if…

For readers happy to follow a leisurely storyteller through an entire town. The pleasure is in the voices and detours, so a tightly organized central plot is less of a draw here.

Good to know

Suicide and death are part of the story. Its digressive structure divided reviewers: Collected Miscellany sometimes had to reread the long sentences, while Kirkus wanted more development of Louis as a character.